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December 30, 2006

fucking firefox crashed and I lost what I wrote
Oh look, it's our friends. Everybody makes a note of how out of her way Ciel is going to be here and how she really shouldn't and she's gonna be totally late. She's a fast runner, she says. Shiki pretends to object to this whole business because he's contractually obligated to. I'm going to explain an important rule to you: the harem lead has to act like he totally doesn't enjoy any of this, despite the fact that the universe around him has been built to the exact specifications of his fantasies. When one of the girls lavishes attention upon him he has to stop and say "whoa there how very unusual, and dare I say I'm a little uncomfortable oh ho ho" but really everything is totally chill. It's a personality type!

So Ciel and Arihiko gossip about how moving must really have Shiki down and how, you know, dude flips out when he doesn't understand things. We squabble with Arihiko while Ciel watches maybe too intently? Weirdo. Then she says hey, that was your house on the news, right? We tell her yeah, the police came by. Hmm. Chick is nosy. When she leaves, Shiki and Arihiko ponder how nosy chick is, and how totally hot girls in glasses are (a sentiment shared by myself). "It was a short friendship," he tells us.

Choice! As interesting as this whole girl in glasses business is, we really need to get to the point already. Getting to the point means purposely ignoring Ciel! Isn't it sad? I stick around in the classroom while I bet Arihiko and Ciel are getting some quality time. Good on them. Nothing at all happens because Shiki doesn't even have anything to stare at. As though dude didn't have enough. Harem leads, like the player, also have a denied and barely suppressed thirst for more. Just sayin'.

"OH BY THE WAY I HAVE ANEMIA," Shiki tells us during fifth period. Since the stabbed-in-the-chest incident, of course. So he sees a crow again, and everything starts all goin' crazy. Screen starts flashing, and whatnot. Arihiko gets him out of school, and Shiki walks home. And finally, on the way home, something major happens. I'm sort of surprised it took me this long to get to the first major plot point, but hey, the game is wordy.

I guess I'm back at it again! I'll definitely be working faster on these over the break but it's still a pretty huge videogame to be playing for you. Anyway, this is going to start to get fun, so look forward to that.

Last time on Tsukihime, we were stabbed through the chest by a car
windshield, got superpowers that make us go crazy if we use them too
much, got superpower-suppressing glasses from a sorceress, got disowned
by our family, grew up a little bit, got taken back in by our family,
fixed fences with a hot upperclassman, ate lunch with a free-spirited
outlaw, had tea with said upperclassman (and she's falling all over us
to the point where we feel bad for her because we're not on her
route and as such this love simply cannot be until we start the game
over), moved into the family mansion, complimented our sister on her
beauty, got called "-sama" by some maids, were roused from our sleep by
some animals and one of them walked right into this guy's jacket like liquid metal or something what the hell is that about, got sick, passed out, and saw lines.

We
go back to the time when Aoko told Shiki about the lines: they are
absolute breaking points for every physical object in existence. Seeing death everywhere all the time is such a bummer that anybody who had to do so would probably have gone insane; this is why
Aoko went out of her way to make the glasses. She can't have little
children going crazy (due to their newfound superpowers) on her watch.
What a lady!

Hisui wakes us. Shiki reflects on it how would be really great for a
girl like this to wake you up every morning; if only she had a
personality. You might call him unappreciative, but remember; he's the
lead character of an h-game. He's spoiled fucking rotten. He's so
spoiled fucking rotten that Hisui lets him know that her sister changed
his clothes for him after he passed out in his bed, and he acts like he
didn't like it. "Usually I would have sensed it," he muses.

We greet Akiha and Kohaku in the sitting room. Nobody heard any dogs or
saw any crazy jacket men or anything, and Akiha totally buhurns us for thinking that there were any.

The maids meet Shiki at the door, and Kohaku has something from the
Arimas to give us. She says it's old man Tohno's inheritance; a knife.
A fruit knife. What a coincidence! Dad must have been a big
proponent, in his life, of superpowers that make you go crazy when you
use them too much. Shiki decides it's kinda crap, and Hisui (apparently
a blade aficionado) decides it's kinda beautiful, so Shiki decides it's
beautiful too. Off to school, then... but wait-- blood. I hope this isn't
Chris' blood! It looks like the barking and funny-man incidents did in fact happen. But really, sweartogod, off to school this time.

I'm gonna cut it off here because school also takes a really long time. This is a short post as-is but if I tag on school it's starting to stretch into too long. I'm going to split what I have into two posts.

December 27, 2006

I've been sick and hacking up the contents of my sore throat, and about the only thing that's made me truly happy today is to see some shots from Gundam Musou. (I'm pretty sure Famitsu gets on your ass if you post scans but I can certainly point you in their general direction and ask that you do a little digging.) Yeah, it's just Gundam Dynasty Warriors but I mean, did you hear what I just said? It's fucking GUNDAM DYNASTY WARRIORS. Plow through thousands of grunts, just like on the show! You'll probably have to play for like two years straight to unlock Char but who cares, man? You're gonna be chopping up dudes with a beam saber in the meantime.

And this Super Robot Wars W deal? Fuck yeah! I'm finally gonna have my SRW on the DS! I won't give you the scan but I'll give you the series list:

King of Braves Gaogaigar (licensed by Media Blasters)King of Braves Gaogaigar Final (licensed by Media Blasters)Full Metal Panic! Series (licensed by ADV and Funimation)Martian Successor Nadesico (TV and movie) (licensed by ADV)Gundam Wing Endless Waltz (licensed by Bandai)Gundam SEED (licensed by Bandai)Gundam SEED Astray, X Astray (licensed by Tokyopop)Tekkaman Blade I and II (licensed by Media BlastersDetonator Orgun (licensed by Central Park Media)Mazinkaiser (licensed by ADV)Mazinkaiser vs. Ankoku Daishogun (ADV never picked this one up because it's only an hour long but I wouldn't be surprised if they had the rights)Getter Robo GShin Getter Robo (says "manga", have to assume the robot would be Shin Getter as seen in the old OVA series) (licensed by ADV, or by Geneon in the case of the 2004 series)

AND FUCKING GOLION

That's right, people. Voltron is finally going to be in Super Robot Wars. I could weep. There's something else I want you to note about that list: Every single series listed (save Getter G, and a lot of Getter G appears in the old Shin Getter OVA series) is licensed by somebody in the US. Hint, hint.

I'm not sure if it's just coincidence that Voltron (it's not like Golion had any kind of a following in Japan) should turn up in SRW alongside a cast composed entirely of series that have been released in the US. Could this be the theoretical licensed SRW US version that Atlus has hinted at in their questionnaires and such? Is it, huh? I mean Detonator Orgun? C'mon. Why not just throw in MD Geist while you're at it?

It's just wishful thinking and speculation on my part so far, but man, this one could happen. Let's hope.

December 26, 2006

My favorite gang of nerds is back, with a catch. This warrants an explanation because it's confusing stuff. The Genshiken is a fictional college anime/manga/videogames/whatever club whose favorite activity in all the world is to watch/read this fictional, retarded harem anime/manga called Kujibiki Unbalance. At this point all Kujibiki was was background material in the Genshiken manga/anime; little more than a set of character designs. But those character designs were very popular with the otaku market: these characters, even without context, were actually selling figures. Lotsofthem. There are even a couple figures of Saki and Ohno (of Genshiken) cosplaying characters from Kujibiki. This is the second time I've had to comment on this blog about how totally meta something was.

Anyway! Kujibiki Unbalance was really popular, you know? It was so popular that when the Genshiken manga was animated, so was Kujibiki. How they handled this was they included an episode of Kujibiki Unbalance on each DVD box of the Genshiken series (and for the US release, on every DVD). So if you really wanted to watch Kujibiki Unbalance, you were gonna have to pay up: those boxes were about a hundred bucks each. To contrast, you can, if you're willing to wait a while, get the US DVDs of the entire Genshiken TV series (Kujibiki included) for about thirty bucks. Daaayum. Despite an opening theme by Real Otaku Hero Haruko Momoi, Kujibiki Unbalance was, as expected, total unbearable shit.

So when it came time to make some more Genshiken anime, the powers that be saw fit to make Kujibiki Unbalance into a full-blown franchise instead. It hurt. It hurt real bad. But there was a light in these dark times: there was a promise of more Genshiken anime. But with a catch. Each of the three episodes is a bonus on the Kujibiki Unbalance DVD box sets. The tables are turned! Insult is added to injury! By all accounts, the new Kujibiki Unbalance TV series is total unbearable shit, so the fans really had to take a bullet on this one. (The manga is actually written by Genshiken's author so it might have a shot, but I'm pretty doubtful.) Me, uh.... I torrented it. Fuck that.

Moving right along then! The first order of business is to introduce the only major member of the Genshiken who didn't appear in the TV series: Chika Ogiue. First seen jumping out of a damn window, Ogiue is the classic self-loathing otaku, which makes her kind of a fan favorite. The episode is very neatly divided into two (almost) panel-for-panel recreations of chapters 24 and 25 of the manga, and it's quality material to work from.

I mean, look what we've got! We've got Ohno flipping out and turning into a vindictive bitch (because Ogiue was badmouthing queers, and as Ohno will tell you there's no such thing as a girl who doesn't like queers). We've got a heated debate over gay porn, here! We've got Saki flipping out and punching people. We've got Ogi flipping out and running for the window again! Hell, we've got everybody, all day, all flipping out and going totally nutscrazy. This is the girls flipping out episode. The dudes of the Genshiken know better than to get in the way of this kind of stuff:; Chicks are fuckin' crazy, man.

The animation is still about at the level it was: unspectacular but functional. Everybody looks a little different, you might note; they changed character designers, and their character designer changed Saki's hair color. It's a little off now. In an even more meta turn of events, you'll notice the guys keep two figures of Ohno on top of their TV. Both, of course, exist. The videogame for this episode is King of Fighters XI; Sasahara picks B. Jenet and Kuchiki picks Ash. These are both choices that are very in keeping with their characters.

And there's a Neo Geo CD over on the far right. They have an AES too. I guess that's where the club budget goes?

December 25, 2006

Many videogames thank you for forsaking your life to play them on Christmas Day. Tsukhime is more reasonable. This little bit appears immediately after startup. "Teach me, Ciel-sensei" is a segment we haven't gotten to because I'm lazy and we've gotten nowhere in this game.

When you get Shiki killed, Teacher Ciel (accompanied by the comically mischievous Neko-Arc) will appear before us and tell us how not to fuck up next time. In other words, playing Tsukihime on Christmas is comparable to death.

As we mentioned, it is Arc's birthday. Neko-Arc would actually like very much for the player to play Tsukihime on Christmas. She can think of no better pastime. There is a conflict.

And like on a sitcom Christmas special, Celebrity Guest Nrvnqsr Chaos walks right on into class to wish Arc a happy birthday. He usually runs around killing shit with his animal friends, but you know, it's the season, and on Christmas even a dude like Chaos is totally chill. Aww, lookit him rationalizing! We know why he's here. It's the spirit.

We are missing the "Neko-Arc turns in one direction, and then the other" animation, but I assure you, her rage is palpable. I had to stop for a minute, and take some really deep breaths.

Because isn't that one of the terrible things about being a videogame character? They're stuck in this goddamned classroom all day, for you. They can't go to church, man. They can't pray to the computer god. They can't hang with the family. They're fucking stuck with you (I MEAN SHIKI TOHNO SORRY) and really, we need to give it a break, you know? Let 'em sleep.

Our friend the free-spirited outlaw makes the free-spirited, outlawed suggestion of incest. Incest: it's like the wind in your hair! He gets scared off by the totally huge Nrvnqsr, who leaves as charmingly as he came, no doubt to the applause of the crowd.

We are implored, again, to for god's sake spend some time with the family, and sent to the title screen. Yes, yes, you can play your videogame now. God. You degenerate. Now here at the Cabrera household we already did all our Christmas celebratin' (having as we do a need for companionship and shared emotion) but yeah, I'll admit it: I closed the window and hung out with the family for a little while longer. Thanks, Ciel-sensei.

Update: I am alerted via Dave Sliva's comment that the WHOLE SITE seems to have diappeared! Not moved, disappeared! Check SNK's front page: it's just not there anymore. The link that used to lead to it has been greyed out. I guess they're mad at me!

December 23, 2006

Somebody finally won the bid war for one of the more popular anime TV series of last season, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Over in Japan Haruhi is already quite literally the Harry Potter of moe; when the TV series was running the only things outselling the novels on Amazon.jp were Potter and The DaVinci Code. In other words, the show is a goldmine. With expectations for its success being so high, all the US anime licensors wanted it, but nobody snapped it up. Months passed after it aired, and still no word.

Then somebody opened up a mysterious site with only this image and the warning that on December 22nd the universe was gonna, like, end or something. Like the time that Neo-Tokyo E X P L O D E D.There was also a comment in the source code that said that "the North American plan" was "in effect". So it was a licensing announcement-- but by who?! The internet speculated wildly! Just as planned.

So yesterday the mysterious site showed its hand. You can see by the hit counter that it worked, but Bandai and Kadokawa are trying so hard here that it kind of put me off. The video is a live-action takeoff of the first episode of the TV series, which is itself a prank: an intentionally horrible animated depiction of a bunch of kids making an unintentionally horrible movie about a combat maid from the future. The video's intentionally horrible in the same way (visible boom mics, hands entering the picture, etc etc and so on), but it's unintentionally horrible in other ways.

The viral stink is really, really strong; I don't think you could scream "I'M PANDERING TO THE INTERNET" any louder. We've got Haruhi sitting at a table littered with Japanese snack foods, we've got Japanese cosplayers speaking untranslated Japanese, we've got multiple uses of O RLY, we've got a "shout out to fansub downloaders unless you don't buy these DVDs in which case fuck you" in the credits, and we've got a frickin' Myspace group. Anonymous tells me they even posted on 4chan a couple times (to an icy reception from that pirate-everything crowd). Christ, guys. It's one thing going for your demographic, but this is just so over the top that I don't know whether to be embarrassed or insulted. There is such a thing as backfiring, especially with the public getting wise to these things, and the hardcore nerd audience Bandai is shooting for being really wise to these things.

Anyway, let's see if it does any business; selling anime DVDs (with abundant, easy piracy and the imminent HD-DVD or Blu-Ray release of all these recent high-quality digital shows) is a pretty uphill battle these days. I sure as hell wouldn't wanna be in that business.

December 22, 2006

Once, upon distant Internets past, I did these gag reviews over on 4chan's /a/. Basically, the Badass Manly Anime Reviewer was a very special fratboy who stumbled upon some shoujo anime and was struck by their incredible manliness. As such, he saw fit to tell the world. It was a good time; people laughed, people smiled, people said "this shit sucks you fag". Then the gimmick got old and I hung it up. It was business as usual. The second Badass Manly Anime Review I did was for Maria-Sama ga Miteru, which is, well, a slow-moving soap opera about the lives of Japanese Catholic schoolgirls who may or may not be (but probably are) lesbian for each other. And this is where the story gets interesting; after a long hiatus more Marimite (or Marmite, if you please) anime was produced. As they tend to do with these things, a single was put out for the ending theme, and I quote

Features guest performance from former Megadeth member Marty Friedman!

Either I was right all along, or somebody got the memo. Marmite is manly.

December 19, 2006

The successor to Hokuto Shinken and a giant flying turtle: finally, together at last.

So sometime during the summer I started getting into Japanese slot machines. It was all a natural process: I saw a PS2 port of the Fist of the North Star slot machine at the import shop I go to. I bought it out of curiosity, and it hit me that this machine actually existed in the real world. I went looking, and not only did the things exist, they were being imported to the US for reasonable prices. Madness! So I bought Fist of the North Star from cool dude Gaku, and I figured that would be it, you know? I only need one surprisingly affordable slot machine. The guys on the Pachitalk boards (heroic men who have converted entire living spaces into tiny Japanese casinos) hear that line all the time, and they laugh, they laugh, and they laugh.

First I wanted an Ultraman Club ST. Then I got sorta fickle. Gamera High Grade Vision was looking pretty sweet, but the Ultraman was a lil' bit cheaper. But you know, when you're buying a permanent fixture like this, you gotta really love it. So I went for Gamera.

Gamera spends most of his time sleeping, as you can see here. Sometimes he sees fish and lights from the sky and stuff like that. Sometimes he fights Guiron. Sometimes he fights less awesome but still pretty awesome monsters. Most of the time he gets his ass kicked. Eye-lasered or stabbed (complete with green arterial spray) by Guiron's head. Really rough stuff. Sometimes he wins, though, and that's when the machine pays out, or as the Japanese seem to like to put it, you GET. If we were playing with medals that we could trade for goods (which we then trade for money around the corner), like they do in Japan, we'd have it made. But we're not. We are satisfied with the ch-ch-ch-ch-ching when the tokens fall.

This is a lot of GET to GET. It's so much GET that the machine gave up: When the theme song played, and Gamera swam out into the sunset, it spit out all the credits it had, and the Game Over light lit up. Lower right corner, there, in that picture. In a parlor setting, this is the machine's way of telling you you won enough, and to go home already, for christ's sake. The Fist of the North Star machine does this by re-enacting the final scene of the fight between Ken and Raoh. It's totally awesome (spoilers, naturally). It's also so rare that I've never actually seen it on my own machine. When Gamera hit the jackpot it didn't do anything special, but I figured it might never happen again, so what the hell. I took pictures.

I'll take more pictures, probably; I need to spend a good long time playing the slots and taking pictures of rare occurrences, and technically, not matter how much I slack off, I have to say that I don't really have any time. You know, finals. Really.